Trust on Purpose
Are you intentional about building, maintaining or repairing trust with the people in your life? Most of us aren’t, and sometimes important relationships suffer as a result. So much of what is right or amiss in those relationships ties back to trust, whether we realize it or not. We are dedicated to helping you become intentional about cultivating strong trust with everyone important in your life: the people and teams you lead and work with, and your family, friends and community, as well. In the Trust on Purpose podcast, we dive into everything that makes up trust, what supports and damages it. We unpack situations we commonly see with leaders, teams, organizations, and others we work with to show how trust can be strengthened, sustained, and repaired when broken. Listen in for conversations between two pros who care deeply about you being an intentional and masterful trust-builder in your life so you and your relationships flourish. We share pragmatic and actionable takeaways you can use immediately and deepen with practice. If you have questions or situations related to trust that you’d like us to talk about in a future episode, please email charles@insightcoaching.com or ila@bigchangeinc.com.
We'd like to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music that you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for the superpower editing work that he does to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to the smooth and easy to listen to episodes you are all enjoying. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
Trust on Purpose
How do you learn to trust when no one taught you?
Send us a message - we'd love to hear from you
What happens when your early life didn't teach you how to trust? How do you learn vulnerability and honesty when those skills were never modeled for you?
We sit down with Andy Vasily - Leadership / Performance Coach, Podcast Host and Educational Consultant - to explore how trust is a learnable competency, not something you're born with. We dig into the neuroscience behind protective behaviors, why withholding information robs others of learning, and how naming emotions transforms defensive meetings into productive ones. Andy explains how leaders who seek to understand how experiences have shaped their team members, before jumping to solutions, create far more effective outcomes.
We examine the power of understanding our own propensity to trust, our ability to repair when we fall short, and how practicing small behaviors until they become second nature allow us to create space in which trust can grow. You'll learn why vulnerability is a performance advantage, how eight seconds of genuine acknowledgment can make someone feel truly seen, and the practical steps that build psychological safety.
If you've wondered whether you can learn to trust differently than you were taught, this episode offers the language, mindset, and next steps to start building trust you can count on.
Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one trust behavior you'll try next.
We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
Hello. My name is Charles Feldman.
SPEAKER_00:And my name is Ela Edgar. And we're in the middle of a technology bump. Wow. And so I just have to get the giggles out for a second. Charles, go ahead. We have we have a lovely guest with us today.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, we do. We have our friend Andy Vasily. He's been on our show before. Brilliant human being, wonderful person. He is coming to us from uh from uh Antwerp, Belgium. Um and uh so we're looking forward to a great conversation. What we're going to talk about today stems from essentially the idea that trust building is a competency. It's something that can be learned, it can be developed, we can get better at it, and we learn it initially in our families. So whatever we learn about building trust and being trustworthy and trusting others, we start to learn it there. Sometimes we learn that well in our families, and other people maybe not so much. So the question we're coming with today, and what we want to explore with Andy, is how do people who don't learn well how to build trust, how to be trustworthy and trust others safely and wisely, how do they learn that later in life? So let me into let me just introduce Andy, and hopefully we're recording all of this. So what he says will come across to all of you. Um Andy, you want to just say a few words about yourself before we jump into our topic?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, sure. So firstly, uh great to reconnect with you both, and I really appreciate being on the show again. And uh the topic today is really important to me. And uh Charles, you and I talked about it behind the scenes a few weeks ago, and then we decided to record this. And, you know, just based on my own life growing up, trust was not present and it wasn't modeled. I didn't understand anything about it. And I think my upbringing was more based in fear in the household and and lots of fear and uncertainty. So when the your essential needs of love and belonging are not in place, it can be very difficult to trust others and to learn how to be trustful yourself growing up. So the the uh theme is really important to me, and I'm looking forward to the conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, great. Thank you. And we'll get to uh I just want to say that towards the end of the conversation, we'll get some more information for you about how you can get in touch with Andy if you'd like to. Um, but let's start with the the quote, Andy, that you uh you gave to us, shared with us earlier before we started recording from uh Mother Teresa.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. So quotes I write them down all the time. You know, I'm sure that you both do as well. You hear a quote, you write it down. And I was on a run in Antwerp, Belgium, and I was listening to uh a podcast with um, I'm forgetting Robin Sharma, the monk who's sold his Ferrari, and he's written a bunch of bestsellers. And what Robin Sharma quoted from Mother Teresa was if each of us would just sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean. And I literally almost stopped in my tracks and I was like, I need to write that down. And I wrote it down in my notes on my iPhone and kept running. And I really reflected on that quote, and it's such a beautiful metaphor for the internal work we all need to do to better understand ourselves. So even though I've been on the path of healing mentally and emotionally uh over the last 10, 15 years, and I've done a lot of work, I'm still trying to grow and learn. So that quote really resonated with me, and I put it up on my wall to as a reminder. And I often share it in my own podcast with my guests to kind of unpack how that quote resonates with them based on their experiences. So when it comes to trust and distrust, I think that quote is a perfect metaphor for the work that we need to do to develop our self-awareness and to better understand how we're showing up, you know, and and to understand our triggers and what gets in the way of us, you know, living a life where we trust others more and we understand the importance of trust and and we value it and we want to be trustful in our own actions. So I'll leave it at that for now, but I'd love to know what resonates with the both of you in regards to that quote.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Hila, wanna jump in here?
SPEAKER_00:I'm holding my breath. Um I love that, I love that quote. It's absolutely beautiful. So it is inviting me to be compassionate to myself because my doorstep isn't particularly clean right now, although I have been doing a lot of deep inner personal work. Um but it also reminds me as I figuratively walk around my neighborhood not to be so harsh with other people's doorsteps and that compassion, that empathy that you know, some days we're rock stars and other days less than sparkly and everything in between. And there's a we were talking about um before that we were recording um some of the verses that I've been writing, and one of them uh that I just wrote is entitled Shallow. And sometimes it's exhausting, overwhelming, and really hard to do deep work all the time. And so shallow invites us to actually dial down the intensity of what we're working on and allow us to come out and breathe and pause a little bit before we go back in. And so if we're doing that intentionally, then can we also have compassion that other people may need to do the same?
SPEAKER_02:I would say very much the same kind of thing uh that quote brings up for me. Um cleaning, making sure my own doorstep is clean, making sure my own house is clean. That's all that I can do. I can't go tell other people. I can tell them, but I can't make them clean their own doorsteps. I can only clean mine. And um so having, first of all, having self-compassion, because you know, getting into that stuff, that learning, um uh deeper work can be messy and can leave my house and my doorstep pretty pretty messed up for a little while sometimes, um, before it gets better, before I move on to the next. And the same thing may be happening with others. And even if it isn't, that's that's how the world is. And being able to accept that is uh is part of the journey. So so Andy, um if we can start here, you had said that you're you you did not learn to be trusting or um you know trusting of others and um perhaps even uh trustworthy, fully trustworthy yourself in your family as you were growing up. So how did you even become aware of trust as a domain of concern?
SPEAKER_04:I think you know the the work I've done has helped me understand the emotional dysregulation I was experiencing when I was young. And when I say young, I mean up into my teens and twenties, you know, and being emotionally dysregulated all the time, trying to figure out life and try to trying to figure out uh your purpose and what you're meant to do. But also I felt I was a very people-oriented person, but my actions were not very trustworthy. I didn't understand trust, I didn't follow through on commitments oftentimes. And, you know, when you're experiencing a life like that, you go into defensive mode and making up excuses and stories about why you're not trustful, right? So I'm not saying it happened all the time, but there are moments when through this reflective journey, when I look back at my life, there were definitely times I didn't show up and I didn't commit to what I was saying I was going to do. And and it impacted some relationships. And I was able to rebuild a lot of those relationships, but there are some relationships that were never rebuilt, and that's just part of life, you know. We live, we learn, we grow, we do our best. And as you just said, sometimes we're overwhelmed with chaos in our lives, and that's what it was like for me growing up. It was chaotic. I was not safe, you know, in in the house, and I was the youngest in the family. So that was probably my saving grace in a way, because I was left alone. But Gabor Mate, who we we know his work, uh Dr. Gabor Mate, if you don't, any of the listeners, I highly recommend just doing a search and watching his videos and getting your hands on any of his books. But what he talks about is trauma is not what happened to you, but what happened inside of you as a result of the trauma. Right. And then conversely, he also says it's the things that should have happened that didn't, the love, the belonging, the trust, right? The connection. So it's the things that that should have happened that didn't. I experienced both of those things. So, Ely, you talk about self-compassion. You know, I'm sometimes drawn to tears when I reflect on the past, you know, and and thinking about the person I was and who I'm striving to be now. And being self-compassionate was the first thing, you know. But for me, I think to answer your question, Charles, it was leaving Canada. You know, my wife and I left Canada in 1997, we moved to Japan, and it was suddenly seeing this whole new world of possibilities and seeing different cultures. And, you know, from then, and I said this on the last show, you know, we've lived in six different countries, we've experienced so many wonderful things and met so many beautiful people. And I think that was the starting point for me to build the life I wanted and to strive to be the person that I wanted to be. And that's when the learning journey really began. So that's that's a hopefully not a long-winded answer, but uh to the point on that pivotal moment was moving away and finding my own life and my own value.
SPEAKER_02:I hear that. So there is that pivotal moment, and sometimes that moment is it happens over some period of time, like you know, months or years even. Um, but it is you, I think what I'm hearing is you look back and you can see that time period where that change happened for you that you began to say, and in a sense, um declare for yourself, I want to be able to trust, I want to be trustworthy in the world.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely. And just to tag onto that, and Eli, I want your thoughts on this as well, is you know, I've shared behind the scenes uh with you both my near-death experience in Cambodia, and that was a pivotal moment that that shook me to the core. And that's when, you know, maybe I found God, you know, and I don't mean that in a religious sense, but more a spiritual sense, and I knew that I needed to continue to do the work, and that was uh a real moment for me when I I started to deeply invest in the journey, and it's been so worth it. But Hila, you know, what comes up for you when you hear Charles and I share what we did.
SPEAKER_00:I well, I want to say right away that I'm in this moment so grateful to be able to have conversations like this. I with people who are so willing to be courageous and vulnerable and share where you've been, where you've come from, what you've experienced. It's something that I'm uh I notice doesn't happen in all conversations. So I'm deeply grateful when I'm able to be part of one that is. I think I was I was giggling a little bit inside. Um, and we talked about this briefly before we started recording, that I I grew up not distrusting and not being fearful, but being completely naive and completely blind. And we're planning a the a family trip we're leaving in a couple of weeks, and I'm recalling a similar trip I took with my mom when I was 13. And so, like, we'll put some context. That was that was a lot of years ago. So there's no internet, there's like we're not walking around with smartphones, and quite literally, I remember arriving in the Salzburg train station, and it's you know, kind of dinner time, and we don't know anyone, she hasn't booked us anywhere to stay, and we're literally just figuring it out moment by moment. And my mom enters into a conversation with someone standing nearby basically explains our situation that we've just arrived in Salzburg and we're looking for a place to stay. And these lovely humans invite us over for dinner and then invite us to stay. And so we did. And that that's just one example that happened multiple times during our trip. And so that was like that was normal to me. Like, why why wouldn't you go into a complete stranger's house? Why wouldn't you, you know, stay for dinner? Why wouldn't you spend the night? Like, of course, this is normal. And yet it's not really. It's not really. And so not only on that trip, but multiple times in my life, I can recall and think back situations that could have gone really badly for us. Um, and they didn't. So, universe, thank you for taking care of us. But I but it didn't help me to learn how to assess risk or how to make prudent choices around activities or relationships or choices in my life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sitting with that.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Hila. Yeah, you that's that's different in a very different way of learning about trust and trustworthiness and trusting others and being safe or not, trusting wisely, in other words. Yeah. I know for me, my family was pretty uh, you know, I think I learned a lot about positive about trust. And at the same time there were secrets in the background that my parents and especially my father uh had. And although I didn't know that explicitly, I could feel it under the surface. And so my response to a lot of that was to keep my own secrets, basically, not share with other people, which is not a very tr not a very trustworthy um way to be with people you you uh want to be intimate with and care for and care about. Um, so I learned to um stuff all that down inside and you know, kind of keep my own counsel and not really share much with other people. Um and uh so that was kind of the way I learned about being trustworthy and trusting others, is just to keep it all under wraps. And it took a long time for me to.
SPEAKER_04:Can I just ask sorry, can I ask you a question with that? Was that a sense of so when you weren't sharing, was it when you look back at that time, was was that a defensive state? Did you feel guarded?
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it wasn't a wasn't around a lot of fear, it was just it's at least explicitly, you know, I'm there was not a lot of fear. Uh there was just this sense that there were secrets. And um, I didn't really want to know what those secrets were. And um, I just and then I had my own secrets, so um, but anyway, I'm gonna go to get kind of get back to that learning though, of you know, because that's really what we want to explore is how do we learn? I mean, I um I think both of you know that I um am a f a co-facilitary actually in a program, it's a year-long program for men who are in state prison here in California, in a prison near my where I live. And the program is uh essentially taking these men through both becoming fully accountable for the crimes they committed, which in most cases was murder in some form, um, but also understanding what happened for them as they were when they were young that got them to the point where they did what they did. And pretty much every one of them did not learn to trust in their homes. They were not safe in their homes. The people who were supposed to love and care for them, their caregivers, parents, or older siblings or um other people that were supposed to be foster, foster care people, whatever, were not trustworthy themselves. Um and yet somehow, somewhere along the line, these people realized that they wanted to change. And that's what I was kind of you were describing that point, Andy, yourself, that you reached that point where you knew you wanted to change. So what allowed you then to change? How did you kind of, you know, go, okay, I want to change, I want to become better at building trust, I want to become, you know, a um a really trustworthy person um and trust others well. How did you actually learn that? What were the, you know, who were your guides in that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's a good question. I I think for me, I started to really lean on people, uh, mentors, and uh share my story with them. And I think trusting that there are people you can lean on and to actively invite them into your lives and to know that it's an opportunity, it's a door that's opened and I can walk through or not. And I really I chose after my accident, I chose to walk through all the doors. And maybe it was the universe bringing me these people in my life. Maybe, maybe not, but um, I believe it was. And oftentimes in life, we miss so many opportunities to connect with others, and that can be based on our own levels of trust that you might immediately not trust someone, therefore you're not going to open yourself up to them. Literally, the doors of their home, Hila, like in Salzburg, right? Um, so in your case, Ela, you walk through the door. And in life, I've chosen to walk through the doors and connect with people. And I wouldn't be connected with both of you had I not taken the chance to reach out to you, Charles, once I I found your work and and we've developed this relationship, and I consider you both mentors, and I can talk to you about anything. And we've had so many great conversations behind the scenes. So it was my willingness to let the guard down. And instead of looking at life through the lens of um being defensive and not trusting, I chose to look at the world in a different light, especially after my accident, to know that there's so much good in the world, right? I get a little emotional talking about it, but there really is so much good in the world. And I think that's the first step to understand and um forgive ourselves. You know, that was a big thing for me to kind of forgive myself or the person that I was. And I wasn't a bad person, I just just to forgive myself for for some of the things I went through and some of my ways of showing up in the world. And I think that act of self-forgiveness really served me. And and I started to build on that, and I started to learn as much as I could about it through my work, and and now that's the work I've devoted myself to um is is really understanding as much as I can, but being there for others who you know may need guidance as well. Wonderful.
SPEAKER_02:Well I what um one of the things I'm hearing here is that um what you were became willing to do, and in fact, actually went out and did on a regular basis was allow yourself to be vulnerable in the world. Um and you know, there's a lot of a lot of conversation around that word these days. Being vulnerable in the workplace is often considered a weakness. Um, and actually not just in the workplace, but in the world in general, it's considered a weakness. We're supposed to go through the the world heavily armed. And what I hear you saying is you disarmed yourself and allowed yourself to be vulnerable so that you could walk through those doors, so you could open to people and accept that. That's yeah, it's great. And it was in part this then were you you almost died in Cambodia?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Part of that. But I I suspect it was something that came, some things that came before that as well. Can you articulate that at all?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So again, I I think I was starting to understand the neuroscience of behavior as well, and understanding that you know, we store trauma and we store it in many different ways, and and our brain is built to protect us, right? And I think it was understanding some of our habitual ways of showing up. And for me, it was really double-clicking on that and understanding my experiences, especially as I moved into leadership as well. And before moving into leadership, this fear of leadership and really going, what the hell is going on with this? Why am I feeling like I always need to justify myself and rationalize and and knowing that inside I just feel like a tight band across my chest anxiety, and and I think it was starting to really explore why those things were happening, you know, and why I was showing up that way. I mean, the leaders are just a person who are trying their best, but it was just this automatic default to not trusting authority. And that stems directly from, you know, authority in the in the house, you know, growing up. So I think that was my learning, and I was already on that journey when the accident happened. And then I think after the accident, I opened up spiritually to possibilities in my life, and then that uh just kept me moving forward. So I think the work was already being being done before the accident, but I was really, after the accident, really intrigued by relationships and what forms strong relationships and to learn as much as I could about it. And then to start to uh it's one thing to know it. You know, I talk often about the head, the heart, the hands, you know, we think with our head, and you know, the heart is everything we experience emotionally. We can read every book in the world, but if we're not going to use our hands and actually take action, then the the knowledge we have isn't worth it, you know. So I I really look at it as taking action and how can we take action? And it requires self-accountability and to be accountable. And when we're not accountable, then we own it and we are transparent about it and we acknowledge it with others. And I think that begins to build a lot of trust. So when I started to take action, I started to feel stronger relationships in my life. And then that led me into leadership and to help me develop a foundation that I want to uphold uh as a leader.
SPEAKER_00:This is reminding me of uh I think one of the turning points in my own uh experience and being a leader at the University of Calgary and working with a fabulous group of humans and realizing that yes, I was very nice and I treated them really well. Uh, we had a a lovely relationship, but in the background, I could feel that I was scattered, that I think I was quite ineffective actually, because I was still trying to figure out how to do things on my own and not necessarily trusting my team and the the competence they had in each of their individual roles. Um and and I think that was kind of the first like, oh, wait, wait a minute. I think that there could be a different way, and that that different way would start with me. It's not about them and fixing them, it's about, oh, I need to change my behaviors or start to pay more attention about how my behaviors are impacting others. And that that was a big aha for me. And then coincidentally, not coincidentally, very shortly after, I started a formal coach training program where Dan Newby was the senior facilitator. We're just talking about Dan Newby and his wonderful work. And so I think you know that if we go back to the quote at the beginning, and how important developing that self-awareness is and realizing how our behaviors are building trust, causing trust wiggles, or potentially damaging trust and how important it is to at some point go, oh, I see that, and then be willing to go and do something about it. Charles, do you have do you have a moment for you or a time period where you're like, oh yes.
SPEAKER_02:Um I think a lot of that had to do so for me, one of the things that um I have you know, I sought after much of my life was intimacy with other people. You know, a sense of intimacy, of closeness, of of deep friendship or or love. And I was finding that I wasn't finding it in the way that I thought it I wanted it to be. And I think it was somewhere somewhere along the way. And for those people who are listening, I probably some of you anyway know that I've been married three times. I'm on my third marriage and it's my last marriage. It's wonderful. Um the second marriage that I had is where I learned a lot about that. And it was that um my second wife was willing to and able to kind of call me on some of my shit. In fact, a lot of my shit. And and in doing so, um I realized that I was holding myself back from being intimate by not um, you know, by keeping my own secrets, by keeping my own counsel. I don't mean to say secrets, although, you know, there were a few things um that I would say were secret in the sense that if somebody else knew them, I thought it would damage the relationship. Um but yeah, it was a period of time in which I realized, began to be a become aware that the intimacy with others that I really craved, I wasn't never going to get as long as I was withholding. That I was not participating in fully and wholeheartedly in the relationship, which meant, you know, not burying my every, you know, burying my soul completely in in every circumstance, but certainly being willing to be more transparent about myself emotionally, I think, as much as anything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm just thank you for sharing that, Charles. Um I'm reminded of that Brene Brown talks about vulnerability isn't disclosure or oversharing.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That that's not true vulnerability. Right. That vulnerability is where exactly as you're saying here, I'm I'm willing to open and not continue to withhold and withdraw and keep secrets. And that takes like, oh, I'm it takes so much courage, so much courage to say I I am willing and want to share more of who I am than less of who I am.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And I yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The courage is comes from um having to uh be courageous to do it in the face of fear that somehow I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna measure up. People are not gonna care about me, like me, love me if I do that. Um So it takes, you know, takes trying it a few times and finding out, oh, I was wrong about that. They actually do like me, love me better. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER_04:So um I I wanted to add on there, and I again going back to quotes, I I can't find the quote right now and I might butcher it, but it's from Dr. Amy Edmondson. And what she talks about is every time we withhold, we rob ourselves and others of learning and growth, right? So that's what you're describing, Charles. You know, you withheld and you were robbing yourself and others of growth and learning and love and connection. So I'm grateful that you shared that and Hila, you as well. And you know, when you think about leadership, and this is something like I have uh something written down here that I'm looking at, and uh what it says is workplace uh workplace dynamics can mirror childhood trauma patterns. So childhood trauma with a parent can mirror relationships with a boss and employee. So, in the work that you've both done, I'd love to know, because this is what I'm grappling with is like, how do you facilitate conversations with leaders to help them understand what they've gone through and their triggers might be holding them back from being more effective and from truly connecting with others and creating this sense of um psychological safety in the workplace.
SPEAKER_02:That's a big question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's a big question. And so I want to say full disclosure. Um I am definitely not masterful at doing that. That it I would not say that that's something, check, I've figured it all out. I'm still a beginner and learning and soaking into not only understanding how my own upbringing has influenced me and impacted my behaviors. I think one of the things I have become more advanced at is actually modeling it myself. And so I am open about talking about. And when I'm in front of a room with leaders, facilitating with uh teams, intact teams, you know, I I will share what's relevant and pertinent in order to support learning and growth. So I model it first and show that it's okay, or how do we also make it to be okay if we're going to support each other in our learning? So rather than creating uh, you know, a safe container, how do we create an accountable space where we can share and learn and grow together? And what do we need in order to support that? And so some of the things that I don't know, for me, I can feel a bit of I'm not sure I would do that from other facilitators. Um, you know, it could be even cameras on or off. And I have this conversation with many organizations, like, no, if you're gonna do a session, it's mandatory cameras on. I'm like, well, actually, no. Because again, I want to support people's learning and growth. And maybe they're not comfortable, or maybe there's a really good reason why. So can we create engagement even if cameras are off? Yeah, we can. Or, you know, everybody has to fully participate. What does what does that mean? What if my participation means that I'm really listening and I'm taking things in, but I'm not necessarily speaking and sharing? I'm okay with that. Right. And so it's all of these things where I think again, building awareness and then building some skill and competence allow us to be in that space and and hold and and model for others. I don't know if that answered your question.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And Charles, I just be I want to know your thoughts, but again, what Elite, I think what you're saying is that you you share um what you feel will provoke the audience into deeper thought. And it's an invitation and rather than a demand, right? And you create that psychological. So I felt safe if I was in your workshop. I would feel safe in that approach. So whether or not I want to share, it's I don't have to, I can sit with my thoughts. So what you're really doing is creating a space of differentiation. And a lot of workshops are are what you know, they're they're structured in a way where everybody does the same thing, but what you've created is differentiation to honor each learner and their learning style. You know, so that's that's really important, and that's what came up for me when you shared that.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good uh distinction and observation, Andy. Um allowing people to and honoring people for being themselves, um at the same time inviting them into the shared space to come in as far as they possibly can. And for me, a lot of that has to do with creating sufficient safety so that people can feel uncomfortable and still proceed, still go forward. And that's and people have different thresholds around that. There's sort of discomfort threshold and their safety thresholds. So part of it is is doing that. But you know, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna say something that I've I've uh have been experimenting with myself a little bit lately. Like I'm gonna say, like Ila, I'm not I'm not a master at creating that sense of safety and um all of that. Still learning. Um, but I've heard some one of my teachers, my certainly the person I consider my coaching master teacher is Julio Olaya. He's the um they run this uh Newfield Network Coach Training Program in the USA. And um uh I actually am quite close with one of the people who was part of the program, and it was actually the only person that Julio ever really allowed to be in front of the room and run pieces of the program without him being in the room, also, which is Carol Corsi. And Carol and I live close to each other, so we do a lot of things, including this prison work, by the way. Um the other day I was talking with Carol about Julio and how he did what he did and what she learned from him. And she said something that, um, not the other day, it's actually a little while ago, but she said something that really stood out for me. She was talking, he was talking with her about how to hold the room. And he said, It's a room of maybe, you know, 50, 60, 80 people in it. He said, said, What you need to do at the very beginning is you need to open your heart and send out love so that it reaches the people in the very back corners of the room. That sense of holding the room with love. And you know, that may seem really woo-woo, but I'll tell you what, I've been trying it out, and it really does shift for what it does for me is it shifts the whole context for whatever I'm doing. So that I'm the context moves from, oh, I'm teaching these people or I'm helping them grow or whatever it is, to I'm holding them in love and allowing them to experience whatever comes up in that loving space. And very different.
SPEAKER_04:Do you feel a shift within yourself? Sorry, Eila, do you feel a shift within yourself as you start?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that's the source of it. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm laughing a little bit at how coincidentally I wore this shirt today. Yes. About love. About love. Yeah. I I love that you shared that, Charles. Loved that you shared that. Um and there's so much really great work around love in the workplace and extending love. Um and and I think it's again remembering that we live, all of us live in a human experience. And some days, super rock star, other days not so much, and everything in between is normal. That's called life. We're not supposed to be rock stars every single day, as much as that would be well, actually, it's exhausting, exhausting. And if we think of anyway, when we extend that compassion to ourselves, that self-awareness to ourselves about, you know, my energy is low, maybe I'm feeling loneliness, sadness, grief today. I'm gonna hold that and take care of it, take care of me, and that allows me to also then not spill over onto someone else. And then can we also do that and hold others as maybe they're not their most sparkly self today? So genuinely extending that love and compassion to another human, no matter where they are.
SPEAKER_02:And getting back to our main topic, trusting that as much as anything else that we trust in the in the process of the work we're doing. And trusting ourselves to be able to do that to the greatest extent we we can.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And I think of Dan Newfield or Dan Newby's work um with the uh field guide to 150 emotions, and what he talks about is that we're built to be able to articulate maybe 20 to 25 emotions, but when we um better understand um all of the emotions and to be able to label them, it gives us this nuanced language to be able to better articulate what's happening for us. And that goes right back to the theme of the show and that idea of um people showing up in the workplace and and understanding their triggers and then sitting with the emotion and being able to name it in a transparent way. And I think that's what one you know, a lot of literature out there talks about the importance of transparency in the workplace, and many workplaces lack transparency, and that usually stems from the top because it's not modeled or it's not embraced, right? So when there's a lack of transparency, people often don't know where they stand. And I and for me, that's the way it was for many years uh in the workplace was I didn't know where I stood, and then I started to make up stories, and then you go back to the your personal narrative from the past that you've built, and then putting a stop to that and saying, no, no, no, that's not true, and then taking responsibility for our emotions and being able to create the space to sit with them and articulate what's really happening, and then having the courage and vulnerability to share that to authority, to leadership. I don't like the word authority, but to share that with leadership. And I learned to do that in an organization that was not very uh, it wasn't a very supportive workplace mentally and emotionally. And rather than going back to my default of shutting down and making up stories and becoming defensive and thinking it's me, I was able to have the courage to share what was happening in respectful ways without fear of judgment because I found my voice. And I think that's part of the process. We have to find our voice and be able to honestly share what's going on without fear of judgment, you know, fear of other people's opinions. And I think for me, that was a a gateway into greater well-being and greater learning. So I I wanted to share that.
SPEAKER_00:But well, and I think that's something that we're we're not necessarily taught how to do. And so as you're sharing that, I'm thinking of an example recently where um a leader was frustrated. And so, okay, then share that you're frustrated. And sorry, this is my dark, irreverent humor. It's like you don't have to run around pulling your hair out if you're frustrated. You can simply say something like, I'm feeling frustrated, and here's what I'm frustrated about. I need your support to help me gain context or clarity so that I can reduce the frustration and we can move forward. I don't know a whole lot of people that are going to know, no, screw you. I don't care. There probably are a few, but to be able to name and state what's important to you or why you're feeling frustrated or why you're feeling disappointed, okay, great. Tell me more about that so that we can work together to find a way forward or to solve or reduce the frustration or the disappointment. It's just about being able to, I think, learn and develop the competency and how do we state this in a way that opens the conversation versus shuts it down.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder, I'd love to hear your comment on this too, Andy, because you've worked with a lot of people around this. I wonder if some of that isn't, or partly that isn't a result of people being afraid that they don't know how to articulate what you just said. That's great. You're kind of a master at this. If I'm just a guy working in a company, I'm, you know, I'm leading a small team and I don't have much experience at this kind of thing. I might be pretty afraid to be able to articulate my frustration to someone in a way that's going to come across like you just came across. Um, so I may just not do it. The frustration, of course, is going to come up. It's going to show up, it's going to leak out everywhere. Um. And so the other person will get it anyway. Uh, what they won't get is the context and the what I'm frustrated about in a way that's positive. Um, so I think part of it is that we don't learn how to do that in our families, first of all. Um, we don't learn to, we don't learn the skill of being able to talk honestly like that with each other. I mean, I remember with me and my sister, who's my the only other family member, you know, our our frustration was taken out in yelling at each other um about stuff. Um, but we didn't have a good way to express it other than that. Um so what do you think, Andy? What and what's your what what comes up for you around this?
SPEAKER_04:I I think in in my role and what I embrace is this idea, and this doesn't come from me, it comes from uh a fantastic uh leader. Her name is Nancy Squiccirini. I had her on the podcast recently, and she does a lot of training. Um, she first of all does a lot of training for women in leadership, but not just women, and what she talks about is this idea of connection before content. And I think that's what's missing oftentimes. So over the last few years, I've really tried to um to make that a priority. And and even the idea of connection before correction, you know, we can default to wanting to fix problems right away and make them right, and we don't give people the time and space to figure it out and help facilitate each other's thinking. So, me as a leader, it's not just me trying to solve the problem, but together, how can we first of all co-regulate? So that requires connection. And I think I've tried to prioritize that idea. You know, everybody says, yeah, people first, people first, but it's true. But what are we actually doing? So it's for me, it's that idea of um connection before content and really understanding people. And I like to explore, okay, tell me about your work experiences before, what were they like to know the types of work experiences they've come from, the workplaces they've come from. And I don't go deep right away and I just use it as an invitation. And it's amazing what comes up for people. People will share, oh, I just came from a great workplace, it was time to go, like nothing bad happened, and now I'm here and I'm excited to work here. Other times you hear about the baggage they carry and their frustration with leadership, and it always stems back to, I would say, 95% of the time not feeling seen, not feeling feeling valued, not feeling appreciated. So coming from from organizations where the leader will get up there in their monthly meeting or weekly meeting and give grand shout-outs across, you know, the room to certain people, failing to understand that the people that don't get shouted out often don't feel valued and appreciated. So it's not that the leader shouldn't be giving shout-outs, but there are better ways to do it, you know? And I think a lot of research shows I actually read an article that was pretty powerful and it talked about the power of the seven to fifteen second informal interaction. You know, a leader walking down the the hallway or the corridor and and stopping and saying, Listen, um, I know how last week was a really tough week for you, and you were really frustrated, but you've really shown up this week and you've done an amazing job, and I really appreciate it. Done. That took eight seconds. And that person will suddenly feel seen, heard, valued, appreciated, and their emotion acknowledged.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Right. So I think that's what I continue to strive to do in my work as a leader is to help people feel that sense of belonging. And it does require that idea of connection before content. And and then, you know, they're the experts doing their work. I'm not here to, you know, I of course I'm I'm here to try to help everybody improve, including myself, but that that connection is vital in establishing trusting relationships.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I love that, Andy. That's that's great. And thank you for the reminder. Um, that's something that I uh as a um as a coach, as a working with people on teams together, you know, doing workshops, whatever it is, doing something like that, being aware of that. It also kind of two things come up for me. One is that we in order to create a world in which there is greater trust, we're all kind of responsible for that. Not kind of, we are. We are all responsible for that. It's not somebody's job to do that. It's all of us working together and taking taking into account that each of us has our own stuff around trust. Um, and so being willing to be open to listen to that, hear that, and work with that. Um and so I was going to ask you, okay, so how you know, who are the people who who, you know, or I did ask you this, maybe who are the people who like you were your mentors along those along that path? Um But I think it's not just the people who are the mentors, it's everyone. That we all need to actually declare that together. Um so uh when I when I work with a team, for example, a big part of it is how what are we gonna do together to build trust uh amongst each other and to strengthen it? And what are we gonna do together? If I'm coaching an individual, what are you gonna do together with your people, people you work with and for to strengthen trust in the organization? So this is yeah, I think this is a big part of this. Il, what do you what are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and you and I have had the pleasure of working together in the same room with teams.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and and I I love that. I'm so grateful for that. And I think what you're saying here reminds me of the importance of giving space for people to find out, figure out, explore with compassion and curiosity what is my own propensity to trust. Because if I don't know that about myself, then I don't know how that propensity is impacting others and my ability to build, maintain, repair, or destroy relationships. So we come full circle again back to that self-awareness. Like I need to understand my own propensity before I can start building and designing and being committed to what I'll build together as a team or as an organization.
SPEAKER_04:Just to add to that, it's it's that idea of, and I appreciate you sharing that. And I was immediately starting to think of actionable steps. And one of the things that I've I've tried to do uh quite a bit is this idea of, you know, we we use adaptive schools, um, the structure which is always uh in our meetings, uh starting off with uh an inclusion activity. So in a past organization, um the inclusion activity was okay, everybody, you got 12 people around the table. Okay, what's your favorite movie? Each of you has like a minute. That's 12 minutes listening to people's favorite movies. And there's some light, polite giggles. Oh, yeah, I watched that. But by the time you get six minutes into it, you're tuned out because the brain is supposed to only connect to relevant content. So suddenly it's not like you're not a team player, but okay, enough. Or what's your favorite food or most embarrassing moment? Those types of things are fun to do superficially. And my suggestion in my last organization was we have things, real things we need to talk about that are going on in this organization that we're all impacted by and we're all struggling with senior leaders, middle leaders. My suggestion is let's start off with a turn and talk for three or four minutes, and you share what's most on top for you, or what are you struggling with most in the past week, or um what something, uh a celebration, whatever it is, but you give people at least the floor to share emotionally what's going on for them. So you've created a structure where that psychologically uh psychological safety is in place where people can share what's really going on. And then maybe a group discussion would anybody like to share, and then you move into the agenda. So if you build these protocols into the start of meetings, I feel that you're really doubling down on psychological safety and mental health and well-being, uh, emotional well-being as well, because you're creating a platform for people to share what's going on, and that's done with consistency. And maybe every once in a while sprinkle in the favorite food or worst food you ever had, right? Um, for shits and giggles, which are great. But, you know, I think as leaders, like building those protocols are essential, as you both know in your work.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. That's an interesting yeah. I like it. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I think it's time to draw this conversation to a close. Um and so before we go, Andy, um, well, I just want to recap. Um we've we've kind of come full circle in a lot of ways. We've started with our own doing our own work, and we've we've come back to a great extent to doing our own work, but doing so in the context of working with others or being with others, sharing with others, being being in a place where in order to be trusting and to and build trust, we need to be vulnerable to others and how we can learn to do that, learn to do that in a way that is sort of what I call wise trust, wise trusting um as well as being trustworthy. So thank you. I want to thank you for all of your thoughts, Andy. This has it's been a great conversation, as always, with you. And uh so do you want to take a moment to just tell people how they can get in touch with you and talk about your podcast and and other ways that they can contact you?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, sure. Thanks. Uh I appreciate that. Uh so my podcast is called the Run Your Life Podcast. I've been at it, I think 12 years now, 286 episodes, I think. Uh, a real passion project of mine. And I learned so much through it, and I'm so inspired after speaking to my guests, and it just motivates me to continue to do the work. And you know what podcasting is like. It's it's hard work, you know, and you got to do the research ahead of time and find guests that connect to the themes of your show. So people can uh find me, Andy Vassley, Run Your Life Show, um, as well. You can find me on LinkedIn, Andy Vassly. Uh, I'm on X as well, Andy Vassley, but I'd love to hear from people and uh connect with anybody who's found value in the conversation and and continue the discussion. So yeah, thanks for letting me share that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Hila, any last thoughts as we close?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, my heart, my heart is full. Um, so thank you for this courageous, vulnerable, connected conversation. And that gentle reminder that doing our own work doesn't mean we have to dive in the deep end. It's okay to start small. It's okay to be maybe supported or unsupported, do some reflection on your own. Always professionals are around to help. So find a good professional if there's if that's something that you feel you need support with. But just yeah, this gentle invitation that we we don't have to dive into the deep end, that it can be small baby steps first, and that it's worth it. And that it's really, really worth it for our own selves and also for the relationships that really matter.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's lovely. Can I just say one last thing because you mentioned uh seeking professional help? And I just wanted to mention we've talked about Dr. Gibora Mate and my wife is a certified compassionate inquiry practitioner, and uh part of the program is free mentoring and free coaching. So if anybody uh listening to this would like to explore that um that service, then they can get in touch with me and I can put them in in touch with the mentor coach for uh free sessions.
SPEAKER_00:It's great.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, well, thank you all listeners. Um, I hope you've gotten something as as much and maybe even more out of this than than uh I have and that Hila has, uh, although I doubt it. Uh as always, Andy, it's it's just a I I really appreciate the the what you bring, the the perspective that you bring to conversations like this and being willing to have open and available for everyone. So until next time. Trust on purpose. Okay, it's still not showing a time clock, but no, it's not it's not moving.
SPEAKER_01:Is it for you? Is it for you everyone?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's showing, it's already 10 seconds into it. Um okay. So do you want to just give it a go? I mean it says recording from me.
SPEAKER_02:Let's let's uh let's see if we can stop it and listen to what's recorded so far and see if we've got all three of us.
SPEAKER_04:It'll be easy to it'll be a quick uh upload, so
